The Maunder Minimum, a period of very little sunspot activity, occured, probably not coincidentally, during the middle of “The Little Ice Age” a time of very cold winters. Those years, 1645 to 1715 A.D., overlap perhaps also not coincidentally with Stradivarius’ “golden years” of 1700-1720, the time during which he produced his most prized instruments. A tree-ring dating expert and a climatologist have joined forces to propose the theory that Stradivarius’ violins owe their superiority not only to the Cremona craftmanship but also the density of the wood that was available at the time. The slow tree growth during those cold years resulted in “uncommonly dense Alpine spruce.” The researchers’ findings were published in Dendrochronologia, the Interdisciplinary Journal of Tree-Ring Science this past July.